“Campaigners are tragically misguided in claiming that decriminalisation will solve anything,” wrote Melanie Phillips in a dangerously misleading article about the UK’s current approach to drugs. The article comes as a response to the tragic deaths of two more young people to accidental ecstasy overdoses at a festival last weekend.

We are appalled.

How did drug prohibition protect our children?

What drug is made safer by leaving its production in the hands of criminals?

These are questions we would like to ask anyone who currently supports the drug war.

Here are our responses to Melanie’s article:

Nick

No, the disastrous mistake was going ‘hard’ on drugs in the 1960s, largely at the behest of the Americans. The War on Drugs is an oxymoron because it is a war on ourselves, on our basic instincts and needs. Since the beginning of time, humans have looked to find ‘time out of mind’ and nature has generously  provided copious ways to do so that are perfectly safe if not abused.
The use of psychoactive substances has been a great benefit to Mankind as music, poetry and art all attest. The mean spirited authoritarians who seek to criminalise drugs and deny anyone the chance to get high with regulated drugs whose quality is controlled are now slaughtering our children in great numbers – more than anywhere else in Europe – putting billions into the hands of criminals and sentencing us to a costly and violent war that will never end and that can never be won.
It is just repeating on a far greater scale the folly of alcohol Prohibition in the USA between 1919 and 1933 and with more or less the same consequences.  To believe that young people should die for the ‘sin’ of wanting to take a tab of Ecstacy, to laugh and dance at a festival, is cruelty of a peculiarly vicious and inhuman  kind. In a sense, this is the abortion debate all over again and on a different plane.

Rose

Two of my sons died from heroin. Yes, they made wrong choices at a young age, so there are those who would say they deserved what happened. But I believe that they would never have progressed along the path from cannabis to heroin if prohibition had not caused them to come into contact with illegal drug dealers. What happened to my sons could happen to anyone’s child, no matter how well you try to bring them up, or how much you tell them to just say no. It could happen to your child. It makes no difference what level of society you come from.

I assume she thinks that it’s unfortunate the young people at Portsmouth died but it’s their own fault for ignoring the law. She must regard any deaths as collateral damage.

Chris

Hard to believe… you can produce stats to prove anything. All mathematicians know that. On a purely practical basis I wonder how she would have prevented the 2 deaths in Portsmouth? Regulation and control would have ensured that what they ingested was what it said on the tin! And in the meantime drug testing would have eliminated the toxic batch.  How would she have prevented these young people from taking the drugs?

I wonder if that applies to all law breakers… It would be interesting to ask, did she drink under age? Have sex before 16?  Ride a motorbike without a helmet? Hitch hike in the 60s or 70s? See an x-rated film before she was of age etc. It seems all laws are equal but some are more equal than others. Was it collateral damage in World war I when hundreds of young men joined up when they were still 14 and 15 and then were killed at the Somme? Or were they heroes?  Makes me very angry all this…

Maggie

To add to the tragedy – the  two young people who supplied the drugs have been arrested here in Portsmouth.

Anne-Marie

I’m livid that people like Melanie Phillips gets column inches that are so precious and uses them in this way. How many times have we heard the following:-

  • decriminalisation is going soft on drugs
  • a free-for-all
  • drug liberalisation
  • normalisation
  • easy access

Calling campaigners ‘tragically misguided’ left me feeling incensed. We are far from misguided, I feel she was under pressure to regurgitate some of her old and outdated articles to feed the conveyor belt of 24 news fodder. Like Hitchens, her days of being someone who anyone will listen to are numbered due to her outdated views, but for now we stand united and proud of the progress that has been made over the past few years and one day those column inches will be filled by someone who has something more sensible to say (I hope so anyway).

Hope

Is Melanie Phillips really saying that she would rather that a young person died than was able to have their drugs checked? She doesn’t need to have her alcohol tested as she knows its strength. Even if she doesn’t’ drink, many others do, in spite of the fact that alcohol kills and ruins lives.

Mick

Phillips uses her standard technique of “situating the appreciation” instead of “appreciating the situation” and so inverts and distorts her case. Truth-inversion is not persuasive.  After her many years, only the incorrigible bigots believe her any more.

Cara

Melanie Phillips’ comments on drug policy are as realistic as suggesting we ban sex outside of marriage. They show no understanding of the 21st century and have no place in an evidence based debate on how to save lives when it comes to drug use.

If you are also angry about how our drug laws are destroying families, please join us on June 26th as we go to parliament to demand MPs end the drug war. For more info click here .